“Gotcha,” Kanan said.
Once the front doors closed behind the stormtroopers, Kanan whipped out a key and opened the door. There, inside a small storage closet, squatted a terrified Skelly, holding a metal pail in his hands. “Was that loud enough?” he said, yelling into the pail and producing a noisy echo.
“Get out of there,” Kanan said, grabbing at him. “And get out of here!”
Keeping the hood pulled low over Skelly’s head, Kanan shoved him back into the main room, along the bar, and out the side door. The stormtroopers and their transport were gone; only Okadiah’s hoverbus remained.
Reaching the stoop, Skelly lifted his cowl and called back plaintively. “So, do I get that ID badge or not?”
Kanan answered by slamming the door and locking it.
Hera was leaning against the bar, apron removed, when he turned.
“Nice tactics, there, Kanan.” He could tell from her expression that she was impressed. “If you want them to leave, make them want to leave. Very smooth.”
“I’ve got a lot of experience avoiding stormtroopers.”
“Oh?” she said. “Why’s that?”
“I don’t like their fashion sense.”
She smiled. “Come here.”
Kanan did—and was pleasantly surprised when she reached out to touch him. “You’ve been holding out on me,” she said, running her finger along the collar of his shirt.
“I’d never do such a thing.” He sidled up closer to her, surprised by this new attitude. If excitement turned her friendly, he wasn’t going to object. “You can have anything you want.”
“Great,” she said. “I want your Moonglow pass.”
“I’d—” Kanan said, before her response registered. “You want what?”
“Your pass,” she said, and jabbed her hand inside his neckline to grab at something. She pulled out a gold-colored card, secured around his neck with a lanyard. “You work at Moonglow. I didn’t know that, until Skelly mentioned it. I want your pass to get on the grounds.”
“I don’t think you can just—”
“I’ve seen the gate. It’s automated.” She made a swish-swish motion with her hand. “Simple.”
“Wait. Why do you want to get into the factory?”
“Denetrius Vidian.”
“Ew,” Kanan said. He walked back over to the bar, where many of his friends beckoned in comforting glass containers. “Believe me, sweetheart, I’m much better looking.”
“I know what he looks like,” she said, following him to the counter. “He’s the reason I’m here.”
“That’s even worse,” Kanan said. He began pouring them drinks. “Look, I know there’s no accounting for taste. But you’re way too good for someone like him.”
“I’m not in a relationship with him. I’m trying to find out why he’s here.”
“I’d have thought that was obvious. He’s here to get more blood out of stones—or thorilide out of crystals.” Handing her a glass, he joined her on her side of the counter. She was really serious about this—whatever that she was into. “I never have figured out why the Empire needs so much thorilide.”
Hera shook her head. “That’s not the mystery here. They’re building Star Destroyers at a rate to put one in every home. The mystery is why Gorse,” she said, “and why now.”
“What do you mean?”
“They were already kicking the stuffing out of you guys to speed you up before Vidian showed up. That’s why your pal Skelly—”
“Not my pal!”
“—it’s why Skelly and a lot of people like him have been so vocal. Gorse and Cynda were not worlds the Empire was honoring with its negligence.”
“Careful,” Kanan said, taking the excuse to lean closer to her and show her his winning smile. “Treasonous words, there.”
“I think I’ll trust Zaluna’s surveillance sweep. So explain to me this,” she asked. “Vidian’s administrative domain is centered on Calcoraan, sectors away. But lately, his whole Imperial career seems to have led him toward one goal: getting authority over Gorse and Cynda. And the second he got it, he called up an Imperial escort to take him here.” She ticked off the mysteries on her fingers. “Now, does that seem strange?”
“Strange that a smart person has nothing better to obsess over than the life of some Imperial weirdo,” Kanan said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Why do you care?”
“Because where Vidian goes, pain follows. Friends of mine have vanished, their worlds have suffered. But everybody wants something. If I can find out what he’s after, maybe I can do something about it.”
Kanan shook his head. What was she—eighteen, maybe? Taking on an Imperial power broker? “Seriously, how did you come up with all this stuff?”
“I have eyes and ears. I read. I talk to people. I listen.”
“You talk to people like Skelly and Zaluna, you really are desperate. Skelly’s a mess. And it didn’t sound like Zaluna was looking to be a part of any of this. She was fulfilling a last request, not picking up a cause.”
A distant look came to her eyes. A little sad, he thought. “No,” she said, “they’re not really the sort of people who could be—” She stopped herself and started again. “They’re not the sort I’m looking for.”
“I could have told you that. I did, in fact.” He put his hand to his chest. “I’m another story. Very reliable. And I’m about to be available.”
“Available for what?”
“For whatever.” Kanan stood upright. “I’m leaving this planet—and I recommend the same for you. You’ve been fun to be around, street fights notwithstanding. Forget this Vidian business, and we can go wandering.”
She regarded him with skeptical amusement. “I don’t think so,” Hera said. “We just met. I don’t even know what you are.”
“Ask anyone.” Kanan waved over the heads of the drunken mob. “Okadiah! Tell her about me!”
Unseen amid the drunken crowd, Okadiah called out, “A fine pilot, an occasional humanitarian, and a somewhat tolerable houseguest. Marry him, my darling!”
“That’s an endorsement?” Hera asked, straining to see where the voice had come from. “Can he even see me?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Kanan said. “Anyone will tell you. I can do anything.”
“I don’t want you to do anything.”
“I know the sector. I know people. I know people who know people.” He turned around. “Here, watch this. What was the name from Zaluna’s list?”
“The guy the Empire was inquiring about?” She didn’t miss a beat. “Lemuel Tharsa.”
His eyes scanned the room. “Hang on,” he said. “Okadiah!”
The old man stepped through the crowd toward them. “You beckoned?” Laying eyes on Hera, the old man bowed admiringly. “Oh, you definitely beckon.”
Hera lowered her eyes and grinned.
“Did you know a Lemuel Tharsa?” Kanan asked.
“I may have known several Lemuel Tharsas. Is there a shortage?”
“He was around twenty or so years ago,” Hera said. “I was wondering if you remembered who he was.”
Okadiah shook his head. “It grieves me to disappoint you, my dear. But no. Never on one of my crews.”
Hera nodded. “All right. Thank you.”
Starting to turn away, Okadiah looked back. “Now, if he worked for the refineries or the Guild administration, I wouldn’t have seen him unless he came into the bar. You might ask Boss Lal. She’s a lifer at Moonglow—from back in the days when it was Introsphere. She might have personnel records.”
“Thanks!”
“But please don’t look at mine,” Okadiah said. “I don’t want you knowing I’m too old for you.”
“Get out of here,” Kanan said, shoving his friend away. “He’s got kidney stones your age,” he told Hera.
“Your remark wounds,” the older man said, and drifted away.
Hera looked up at Kanan. “Well, now, I really want to get in over there. Will
you give me the badge or won’t you?”
Kanan rubbed his forehead. “I knew you were going to say that. Look, it’s been a long day. In a few hours, I’ve got to run these people back to Moonglow for the morning shift—those that regain consciousness, anyway. I also need to pick up my final pay. You come with us. If you insist, I’ll take you to the grounds and get you in.” He put up his hands. “But that’s it, all right? No crazy stuff.”
She studied him for a moment. Finally, she nodded. “Okay. Just this one thing.” She raised her glass. “And no crazy stuff. That’s my motto.”
Hera returned to her ship, resisting Kanan’s offer of lodging at The Asteroid Belt. It turned out that “drunks sleeping on the floor” was more than a jocular expression; Okadiah Garson owned the building across the alley, where exhausted revelers, for the princely sum of a credit a head, retired to the luxury of mats on the hard floor. Kanan had offered to give her the more private room upstairs from the cantina—with him either present or absent—but she’d decided to pass. She had a lot to absorb.
Zaluna had never resurfaced, and Hera doubted there was any point in trying to make contact. If Hera had arrived earlier, or if the Sullustan woman hadn’t been scared off, she might now have the data cube from Transcept, obviously a treasure trove of information on people and Imperial surveillance methods. But Hera wasn’t angry at fate, or herself. Every plan ran the risk of failure due to the unexpected. Recriminations were a waste of valuable time.
But Kanan Jarrus had surprised her, and people seldom did. In Shaketown, she’d seen a brawler, a typical roughneck. But in the bar—beyond his romantic interest, which she had decided to find amusing—she’d seen him act with subtlety and cunning.
It was timely, but likely a onetime thing. She didn’t expect to have a chance to find out, in any event.
No, her real quarry remained. Vidian wanted increased production from the world, obviously, but the urgency of his visit had her thinking something else was going on. If Vidian was here on a secret mission—maybe a secret mission for the Emperor—then she wanted to know.
And then there was Lemuel Tharsa. From her ship, she’d checked the public HoloNet and found Tharsa was alive and well and living offworld as a mining consultant, doing freelance work for the Imperial government. Why, then, would anyone aboard Ultimatum want to check out his distant past on Gorse? Might he be a potential traitor in Vidian’s midst—and an ally for her, were she to warn him?
She would look for answers tomorrow, at Moonglow. She would find the truth—and the truth would tell her what to do. As it always did.
She forced herself to sleep.
Phase Two:
REACTION
“Emperor opens new veterans’ medcenter on Coruscant”
“Hunt under way for missing after industrial accident on Cynda”
“Count Vidian arrives on Gorse for inspection tour, traffic delays possible”
—headlines, Imperial HoloNews (Gorse Edition)
For the first time since she entered the Academy, Rae Sloane was late for an appointment. But the Galactic Empire had made the schedule. It could break the schedule.
And it wasn’t her fault, anyway. During the descent through Gorse’s atmosphere, Count Vidian had emerged from the passenger compartment to reroute the captain’s shuttle—Truncheon—to a location well south of the factory districts. He’d demanded a flyover of the miners’ hospice he had ordered closed.
She hadn’t understood the point of making such a trip, if they weren’t going to land. There wasn’t much to see in the dark. But then she’d seen the reason in a flash—or rather, with a flash, as the cube-shaped building abruptly imploded. Vidian had been busy while Sloane had slept, ordering the movement of the personnel, usable equipment, and all patients—so far as she knew, anyway—from the medcenter. With many of the just-evacuated still on the ground looking back from their transports, the Empire’s demolition teams had made quick work of the building. Debris removal vehicles were already on the scene; Vidian had plans to turn the site into a more convenient fuel depot. True to his reputation, the man worked incredibly fast. Sloane could only imagine what the bewildered patients watching must have thought, watching their home coming down.
She didn’t bother to imagine what Vidian had thought. The man had simply watched the collapse, emotionlessly, before returning to the rear of the vehicle. It was fine with her. Her job was making sure nothing else happened to interfere with his visit. What had happened on Cynda would not happen here.
The count had stops planned all over the muddy megalopolis, so Sloane had decided against using ground vehicles to get to them all. There would be too many routes to secure. Instead, Truncheon would fly from stop to stop, bringing its own complement of stormtroopers and protected by electronic countermeasures against ground-to-air attacks while in flight. Such an attack was unlikely in the extreme, but Sloane tried to think of everything.
It meant clearing landing zones everywhere and securing them. That hadn’t been a problem. The captain of a Star Destroyer was a naval officer, of course, but she was also the personification of Imperial authority in the system. And while she did not have formal power over the Empire’s local authorities on Gorse—except under certain circumstances—captains of capital ships were nonetheless treated like miniature governors. Few petty bureaucrats wanted to argue with someone who could put a dozen AT-ATs on the ground with a comlink call. And so Gorse’s local police force had joined with the stormtroopers from the planetary garrison to make ready for Vidian’s arrival.
She could get used to having this kind of authority. She certainly wanted to.
“Shaketown,” she announced as the ship approached an industrial neighborhood. “Such as it is.”
The place was aptly named, she decided: Sloane felt a slight quake as the ship’s landing gear settled in the mud. The advance team had decided against having Truncheon land on Moonglow’s tarmac, where it would have been parked amid explosives haulers; the fugitive had flown back on one and was still at large. Instead, the street in front of Moonglow’s front gate had been cordoned off—reportedly over the heated objections of a Besalisk diner owner—to create a reception area.
Such as it is. The ramp down, Sloane surveyed the scene. Vidian’s official visit—even her visit—on another world would have merited pomp and preparation, short notice or not. Here, there were a few temporary light stands supplementing the waxing moon—and someone had laid some planks over the muddy street. About two dozen citizens stood off to the side, flanked by stormtroopers, watching as a sad little processional approached Truncheon. Not the greeting she had ordered or would have liked—but she knew Vidian wouldn’t care.
He appeared in the doorway behind her. She’d only known Vidian to march straight into places, not wasting any time—but here, he stood, looking up, down, and all around. And mostly at the factory across the way, where his macabre eyes lingered for long moments. She decided he was just doing whatever it was he did when he prepared to inspect a place. The man could be standing there staring at tomorrow’s menu in the Ultimatum mess halls, for all she knew.
A tan-skinned human woman waved to them, flanked by two Besalisks. Sloane knew her from their holographic conversation as Shaketown’s mayor. “Welcome, Count Vidian. Welcome, Captain. May I present Lal Grallik, chief operating officer of Moonglow Polychemical?”
Vidian broke from his trance and walked down the ramp. No hand was offered. Sloane joined him on the planking.
Lal, wearing a dark business suit, bowed and gestured to the other Besalisk. “This is my husband, Gord—head of ground security.”
“I hardly think we’ll need him,” Sloane said, following Vidian. “And I’m surprised he would be employed here after letting the demolitions man escape.” She paused to glare at Lal. “Family or not!”
The male Besalisk growled. “If you think you can do any better—”
His wife shushed him. “I’m sure there won’t be any problems now,
Captain. Gord’s team has triple-checked every square meter of the site.”
“Uh-huh.” Hearing a high whine coming from the south, Sloane turned to see a weathered hoverbus setting down outside the security line. “What’s that there?”
“Part of the next shift for Cynda,” Lal said, smiling too broadly. “We’re always working here!”
The stormtroopers waved the battered hoverbus through the checkpoint. The Mark Six Smoothride had already been past its life span when Okadiah bought it; where it had once flown through the skies, not even Kanan ever dared to take it more than a meter off the ground. Okadiah had been so terrified it would skyrocket off uncontrollably that he kept a parachute under the seat. Kanan thought that an unlikely scenario. It was much more likely to die in the street, as it had for him several times. It was good for one purpose: bringing hungover miners back to Moonglow so they could earn enough credits to drink again.
The Imperial Lambda was parked up ahead, its mass completely blocking the entrance to Drakka’s Diner. Kanan was certain the chef loved that. In front of the Sienar Fleet Systems shuttle, Kanan saw his boss’s husband ambling along, following several steps behind a larger party. Spotting him drive past, Lal waved. “Hello, Kanan! Good to see you didn’t quit!”
Kanan replied with a half wave—and then, seeing Vidian out there, quickly pulled his head back inside the window. He gritted his teeth. Yesterday, he had been ready to leave Gorse entirely. Today, he was willingly coming back to an armed camp. But it was just one more day, and there was an excellent reason why. Looking back down the aisle, he saw her chatting amiably with the miners. They were spellbound by Hera. He couldn’t blame them.
The stormtroopers waved the hoverbus around to the service gate. The Smoothride groaned as it turned sharply, and for a moment, Kanan thought he heard a thump coming from one of the rearward compartments. It could be anything, he thought. The hoverbus was apt to die on any given trip. Even the door to the restroom was broken.
“I’ve been having the most lovely conversation with your young friend,” Okadiah said, arriving from the back. “We have decided to vacation on Naboo. You may drive us.”
A New Dawn: Star Wars Page 14